The present invention is directed to medical patient monitoring, and especially to effecting patient monitoring in a manner cognizant of the extant environment or surroundings of the patient being monitored.
Patients may receive reminders relating to taking medication or performing medical tests at various times during a day. The timing of the reminders may be predetermined and may, therefore, be provided to the patient at an inopportune time or when the reminder is no longer necessary.
Prior art systems for effecting reminders for medical procedures for patients have heretofore been dispatched to a patient at pre-programmed times and dates independent of any changes or circumstances experienced by the patient. If an event was canceled or rescheduled or if another change occurred in the environment or circumstances of a patient, the schedule for reminders for that patient would have to be manually reprogrammed.
It has been observed that preprogrammed reminders may eventually become monotonous and may be ignored by a patient. Further, preselected times for reminders may interfere with a patient's activities, which activities may change from day to day. By way of example and not by way of limitation, if a reminder is scheduled during a patient's working hours, inadvertently or otherwise, or if the patient has a sudden change of routine or schedule away from home, taking vital signs or taking medication may be very inconvenient. Taking vital signs such as, for example, blood sugar, blood pressure, weight, lung capacity or another test for monitoring a possible chronic disease may be inconvenient away from home. Ill-timed reminders sent according to a prior art preprogrammed schedule to carry out such monitoring may be ignored by a patient when they are received, and may be later forgotten altogether.
By way of further example and not by way of limitation, a diabetic patient may initially monitor blood sugar four times per day at the beginning of a treatment program. As time passes with proper medication, diet and other care, the parent's glucose may stabilize and monitoring of blood sugar may be reduced to three times per day. The present invention permits such an adjustment to be based upon observed test results without having to manually reprogram the reminder schedule.
By way of still further example and not by way of imitation, if a patient has taken a vital sign reading just prior to a reminder being scheduled to be sent, then a reminder would be a bother. The present invention permits automatic noting that the vital sign has been taken and reminder for that vital sign may be withheld.
It would be useful to provide a system and method for scheduling the sending of medical reminders to a patient that may be cognizant of the context, surroundings or environment in which the patient is operating when determining what reminders to send to the patient or determining whether to send a reminder to the patient.
There is a need for a system and method for effecting context-cognizant (i.e., aware of a patient's environment or circumstances) medical reminders for a patient that permits rescheduling or reprogramming timing of reminders when a patient's environment or conditions change.